Just off the Columbia River, the Wanapum Heritage Center is a home for Wanapum culture and artifacts. The building form weaves solidity and light, from a protective repository enclosure that references traditional cliffside cave storage spaces to the glazed welcome area that evokes traditional fishing lanterns. The entry path aligns with the equinox sunrise, a Wanapum 'marker'. The center houses archival items alongside recording studios for oral history, and new gathering spaces. — Mithun, an integrated design firm
Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a soup-to-nuts strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room. — The New York Times
Helping impoverished Mississippi communities? Check. Making money while creating a business model that empowers you with the decision-making powers of developers? Check. Being notable and effective enough to earn your own profile in The New York Times by Michael Kimmelman? Done, done, and done for... View full entry
Spring is continuing to bring visiting architects lectures to Chicago this week. We also have volunteer opportunities for designers and global research presentations.Here is your list of things to do in Chicago over the next couple of weeks.Junya Ishigami | February... View full entry
What would America be without immigrants? More to the point, what would architecture be without the ability for those working within it to freely travel and collaborate with (much more affordable) talent from around the world? In recognition of these facts, the AIA has released an official... View full entry
As February draws to a close, we can feel spring already in the London air. If you are already full of 'Spring Cleaning' motivation, make sure you don't miss the NLA's workshops this weekend on home improvement, featuring advice from leading architects. See the month out with 'Tate Lates'; a... View full entry
Incorporating both physical and intangible elements of Canada's musical history, the National Music Center by Allied Works is a nine-towered, terra-cotta tile clad complex that not only ropes a 112-year old hotel/blues club into the mix, but creates the kind of spaces suited for gazing dreamily... View full entry
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've already heard about Abstract, Netflix's incredible new documentary series on design. This week we're talking to Abstract's executive producer, Morgan Neville, who also directed the episodes featuring Bjarke Ingels and Christoph Niemann.As one of the... View full entry
Although plans to tear down Tadao Ando's Piccadilly Gardens have been floating about since last late last year, the Manchester City Council just gave its official approval to knock down Ando's quasi-Brutalist structure in favor of a "leisure-led" scheme last week, according to the Architects... View full entry
In LA, Trump bragged he was going to spend a billion dollars on what he claimed would become the world’s tallest building. His architect Bill Fain delivered a gilded 125-storey office tower etched in a diamond-patterned exoskeleton...David Martin also devised a skyscraper: ‘When I told Ivana [Trump] the basis of the idea was to put two diamonds together, she lit up,’ Martin said. ‘I think they were divorced a week later.’ — The Guardian
Whether you've been following the tumultuous life of proposed architecture projects in Los Angeles or not (a stretch of Grand Avenue, for example, has been undergoing elaborate proposals designed in part by Frank Gehry for almost forty years) "Never Built Los Angeles," a book by architectural... View full entry
Part inhabitable mood ring, part psychological experiment, the exhibition "Work 3.0 – A Joyful Sense at Work" from UNStudio and SCAPE is an attempt to create spaces that make work stress more bearable by testing out adaptable environments in the form of a "fully immersive, modular... View full entry
Drawing from an international roster of architects who meet the five objects of nomination (including ensuring "the advancement of the living standards of people through their improved environment") the AIA has announced this year's honorary fellowships. The fellowship, which doesn't have a set... View full entry
Talks, debates, networking, and art fill the evenings of coming week, including an interactive and immersive Saturday night at the RA, and Autodesk's Design Night at the newly transformed Design Museum. Brave the cold, and head to a talk on the future of the city, or on the future of the... View full entry
This week on the podcast we are joined by Emily Hunt Turner. Emily gives us an update on her restaurant/non-profit startup All Square, as we previously featured in her Working Out of the Box feature. We also talk about her time working as a lawyer for the Department of Housing and Urban... View full entry
Combine cross laminated timber, glue laminated timber, and the desire to connect with nature while providing ample creative working space, and you have the 5 King Tower, a 52-meter timber structure with the strength of concrete and steel (but a much smaller carbon footprint).The 5 King tower... View full entry
One of the most vexing features was the doorways, which Apple wanted to be perfectly flat, with no threshold. The construction team pushed back, but Apple held firm. The rationale? If engineers had to adjust their gait while entering the building, they risked distraction from their work, according to a former construction manager.
“We spent months trying not to do that because that’s time, money and stuff that’s never been done before,” the former construction manager said.
— Reuters
Although detail-obsessed architects can often find working with broad-strokes contractors to be challenging, there's one group of designers with perhaps even more rigorous attention to detail: the team at Apple. According to this article in Reuters, the actual building of the "spaceship" Apple... View full entry